wildfire
[wahyld-fahyuh r]
- a highly flammable composition, as Greek fire, difficult to extinguish when ignited, formerly used in warfare.
- any large fire that spreads rapidly and is hard to extinguish.
- sheet lightning, unaccompanied by thunder.
- the ignis fatuus or a similar light.
- Plant Pathology. a disease of tobacco and soybeans, characterized by brown, necrotic spots, each surrounded by a yellow band, on the leaves and caused by a bacterium, Pseudomonas tabaci.
- Pathology Obsolete. erysipelas or some similar disease.
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Origin of wildfire
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
flame, bonfire, conflagration, wildfire, inferno, blaze, light, flash, flare, combustion, burning, holocaust, flames, flaming, brightnessExamples from the Web for wildfire
Contemporary Examples
Besides, victory fever had spread like wildfire throughout the Allied armies.
Anti-Korean books, magazines, and comic books are selling like wildfire.
For Top Pols In Japan Crime Doesn’t Pay, But Hate Crime DoesJake Adelstein, Angela Erika Kubo
September 26, 2014
It was late October, six weeks after the initial outbreak, and the virus was rumored to be spreading like wildfire.
The dish “took off like wildfire,” says Leong, despite there being virtually no Chinese people in the area.
‘The Search for General Tso’: The Origins of America’s Favorite Chinese Dish, General Tso’s ChickenMarlow Stern
April 19, 2014
Statutes will prevent this from spreading across the majority if it catches on like wildfire for the student athletes.
Historical Examples
It spread like wildfire, and in half an hour all the town was in a ferment.
Howard Pyle's Book of PiratesHoward Pyle
The news of this assault spread like wildfire in the little town.
The Naval History of the United StatesWillis J. Abbot.
The news will spread like wildfire over the town and county.
A Girl of the CommuneGeorge Alfred Henty
Word had already fled like wildfire through the hamlet that the squire was there.
Robert ElsmereMrs. Humphry Ward
The paper went like wildfire, and the town all but doubled itself in my time.
Grey TownGerald Baldwin
wildfire
- a highly flammable material, such as Greek fire, formerly used in warfare
- a raging and uncontrollable fire
- anything that is disseminated quickly (esp in the phrase spread like wildfire)
- lightning without audible thunder
- another name for will-o'-the-wisp
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for wildfire
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with wildfire
wildfire
see spread like wildfire.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.